1st Critique - Animal Packaging

This week I have struggled to get into this brief and I wasn't 100% on what was expected of us, It seems that it is our ideas and thought process then presentation techniques that are what is important not the actual final outcome of the project, by means of making it. 

I had a few rough ideas to show for the Crit by means of shape, however I have of yet to discover the templates for these ideas. I'm not going to be adventurous and design some whacky packaging in the sense of shape and materials etc, but keep my template design simple - a cube, and then focus on the illustrations as the selling point. 

I was looking through designs in a packaging book from the library and found a stencil based design which set my brain going in creating my own stencil designs for this packaging. I will now research into stencil designs, existing work to then enable me to develop my ideas further. 

Overall this idea got good feedback and in the words of James McMorrrow I now need to 'take it to the next level!'

Our boy Will

This is Will and he is the person we created as the type of teenage boy that we are aiming our packaging at. 

This is a slide from our presentation, I've never really enjoyed speaking out in front of people in things like this I would much rather sit back and let everyone else do the talking. However this was one of my things that I wanted to improve and build my confidence up in. I did actually enjoy doing this pitch as I was confident we had a good solid idea and I was keen to impress the tutors with it, and I think that we were sucessfull as a team in doing that.

Animal Group work

As part of the criteria for this brief we had to work in a small group to cover initial research and begin developing initial ideas. I was a bit dubious of today as I haven't had very good experience of working in a group so far on this course. 

However today couldn't have gone better, I was selected to work with a really good group of people that I know are hard workers and would put in alot of effort. By lunch time we had completed a couple of brainstorms, agreed on a target market and assigned each other areas to research in pairs.  How organised!

Being this organised defiantly paid off though, by the end of the day we had cover a huge area of research and put together a humorous but in depth presentation. I felt very on track and inspired as I knew exactly what I was doing and couldn't wait to get into the designing stage. 

Our agreed target market is teenage boys aged 10 - 16, who are going to be moving up to secondary school. They are boys who are beginning to become more independent in their choices and are feeling the need to fit into the current trends. We chose this target market because we wanted to do something different, we guessed that alot of people would be aiming their ideas on the surfing side to Animal, we wanted to steer away from that in order to produce something more unique. Animal do produce clothing and merchandise for this age range but it isn't well publicised, therefore we are also targeting a gap in their current campaigns. 

Animal Watches - The Packaging

Today we were briefed on this live project which is going to challenge us on producing and displaying ideas in a short time period. We have to define a target market within Animal which we want to aim our designs at, then move it forward using appropriate research, mood boards and rough designs to gain understanding of material, processes. It seems that it is not the final piece that is of importance in this brief but the understanding and research behind it, and our concepts along with the presentation of ideas. 

I am very aware that this project is going to be very in depth and I think that I am going to find it challenging as it will be requiring me to work in areas that I don't normally. I am also very aware of the timescale that we have to work to and how small it is. The final crit for this project is in 16 days, and the deadline for this whole unit is in 21 days. Oh my god!

Evaluation of Greetings Cards

This brief was one of the best briefs that I personally have enjoyed the most, I think it was perfect for me to show my true illustration skills in an area that I want to progress further in which is Fashion Illustration. I found this a great opportunity  to really push myself and produce a great set of greetings cards that will suit my defined target market. 

I found this brief alot better that the first one as I could determine what exactly we were required to produce at the end of it which gave me a clear path to begin researching and illustrating. 

The end result of my cards I feel are very good, and I think that they would defiantly be purchased by my target market and displayed on a Topshop counter. The only thing that I think I could improve on is the quality of the print as they look a bit grainy, but then on the other hand people did comment and say this gave them a vintage look so maybe that isn't such a bad thing as that would defiantly reflect Topshops image as a brand. 

The Layout

This is the layout that I have chosen for my cards, on the front of each design in a corner there needs to be the Topshop logo, and the logo of the collection that the card is for. I didn't think about this when designing my designs so I have had to place them in different corners on different cards as the I didn't leave free space for them. Something to think of before hand next time....

I will present these at the first Crit tomorrow, and hopefully get some positive feedback on them. I am hoping there I will be given a few suggestions about the reverse of the card as it seems a little to blank at the moment.

Punk Couture, Pagan and Wonderland

The final three designs are done!! I am so pleased with all of them, I think they all work so well together and a set and really reflect each collection. If I was buying a present for some one, or a gift card I would defiantly purchase one of these cards to compliment it.

Punk Couture is defiantly one of my favorite designs out of all six, the tartan background behind the rock n roll model looks brilliant and then again with the ink runs and surrounding collage images it really is a strong design.

Pagan was a really fun one to do because the style of this collection is quite vampy, so lots of lace and creams, pinks, blacks and grey's. I enjoyed looking at different samples of lace to use as a background. It is another of one of the more unique collections.

Last but not least is Wonderland. This collection basically reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, with the bright harlequin patterns, then bright and colourful bow and heart accessories. It has a fun and cheeky feel to it which I think I have created within my illustration.

Now I have all the designs completed I will need to put them into indesign and get a layout created. I need to add the necessary text and images such as a bar code as they would need this all included when there sat on the counter in Topshop. I feel that I am ready for the Crit tomorrow and look forward to the feedback on my designs, before the main one on Friday.